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+--- Thread: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? (/thread-2394.html)
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - Koen G - 09-06-2018
So I just decided to open a random manuscript - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - and was able to find the following correspondent glyphs. Mostly the ones in the "final abbreviations" category.
Would the following conclusions be correct?
- EVA-l is rare as a non-numeral.
- EVA g, m, s, y, n are not particularly rare and generally used for abbreviating.
- Benches are not particularly rare and are generally ligatures.
- It's harder to find regular use of (2) ánd (3) in the same manuscript? (this is just from my very limited experience).
- Gallows still lack a decent parallel that coincides with (2) and (3).
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - -JKP- - 10-06-2018
(09-06-2018, 10:16 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
Would the following conclusions be correct?
EVA-l is rare as a non-numeral.
Yes, it is rare as a non-numeral, quite common as a numeral from about 1380 to about 1490. It was a scribal convention (usually superscripted) in some earlier medieval manuscripts, but even then it wasn't super common and the abbreviation fell out of use before the 1400s.
EVA g, m, s, y, n are not particularly rare and generally used for abbreviating.
Yes, EVA-y and EVA-m are especially common and yes, these are used for abbreviating. In fact, you'll often find EVA-y included in pen tests of the alphabet (at the end).
Benches are not particularly rare and are generally ligatures.
Yes, benches are quite common (depending on the scribe) and have many meanings (with the parts standing for c, e, r, i, and t most often) and are usually ligatures.
It's harder to find regular use of (2) ánd (3) in the same manuscript? (this is just from my very limited experience).
In a sense this is true since each scribe tended to latch on to a few favorite abbreviations and ligatures and use those. Some scribes had a broad repertoire and used many, but most just picked a few that they liked and used those, so you won't necessarily find the same ones in different manuscripts (except for the most common ones).
Gallows still lack a decent parallel that coincides with (2) and (3).
What I mean with (4) is that in a "flowy" hand like the one below (early 15thC Spanish) you'll get the abbreviations and flourishes but not really the benches as they appear in the VM.
EVA-k is very common (as a ligature in French, and as Item in several languages, and also as tis when it is short). The other VMS gallows look more like they are constructed of parts to suit the writer's needs. When chars that look like gallows are benched in Latin, it's usually a long macron to indicate several letters missing. When chars are benched in Greek, it's usually Pi being stretched over another character for reasons of space or aesthetics. The particular combination of parts used in the VMS are not especially common but they are not entirely strange either if it turns out that they are composed of parts to be understood individually rather than as a whole character.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - DONJCH - 10-06-2018
(09-06-2018, 10:16 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So I just decided to open a random manuscript - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - and was able to find the following correspondent glyphs. Mostly the ones in the "final abbreviations" category.Koen, that seems a fair summary to my even more limited experience.
Would the following conclusions be correct?
What I mean with (4) is that in a "flowy" hand like the one below (early 15thC Spanish) you'll get the abbreviations and flourishes but not really the benches as they appear in the VM.
- EVA-l is rare as a non-numeral.
- EVA g, m, s, y, n are not particularly rare and generally used for abbreviating.
- Benches are not particularly rare and are generally ligatures.
- It's harder to find regular use of (2) ánd (3) in the same manuscript? (this is just from my very limited experience).
- Gallows still lack a decent parallel that coincides with (2) and (3).
With the gallows, being decorative and innovative by their very nature you would expect much variation so I guess that is why an exact match is harder to find.
As I understand it, grossly oversimplified, the medieval humanist hand evolved from Carolingan miniscule evolved from Visigothic miniscule which was heavy in gallows.
So in our favour is a much longer and earlier period to find examples. The manuscripts in question seem to come from Spain up to the Moorish conquest in the 12thC. The task is pleasant as these are truly gorgeous manuscripts!
An early genesis for the gallows would be right up your alley!
With all this, remember I am still only an egg so may be wrong.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - -JKP- - 10-06-2018
I have thousands of samples that are similar to the Voynich main text (and the marginalia, as well). It will take me days to gather the most relevant to put them in a chart.
I thought I would point out that we haven't really defined what we mean by the Voynich glyph set. I believe there are two. possibly three, forms of EVA-r, with all three having analogs in medieval Latin. There are also five forms of EVA-m (not just rare characters but glyphs that run throughout the manuscript) and all have analogs in medieval Latin.
Since I only use my own transcripts, and I have created four of them over the last 10 years, I've studied every single glyph in the VMS numerous times and have a better feel for which variations are hand variations and which are intentionally written differently than if I had relied on someone else's transcript.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - Koen G - 10-06-2018
If we set aside the gallows problem for the time being, I would be interested to learn which type of scribes used both "pi" and EVA g, m, n... I have a feeling this might prove informative, if enough examples are found.
DONJCH: yes, I think the images must have reached wherever the VM was made via at least one medieval copy, so it is posdible that whatever script or hand this copy was in had an influence on the final appearance of Voynichese. This might explain why one feels like dr. Frankenstein when reconstructing its origins.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - MarcoP - 10-06-2018
(09-06-2018, 02:43 PM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, Marco seems the clear winner to date and all the non-gallows are covered.
Thank you, but I cannot possibly be the winner of anything, since I just collected observations done by others
Maybe we can agree that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Switzerland, 1459 provisionally seems to be the single source providing more matches.
BTW, a while ago I identified Thomas Sauvaget as the author of voynichanalysis.wordpress.com: can anyone confirm or correct that? (just curious)
I now see that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. also pointed out an excellent analogue of EVA:k k
Some could find interesting that the text is by Oresmes "A copy of the commentary on Aristotle by the French scientist and philosopher Nicolas Oresme († 1382) Quaestiones super libros Meteororum; according to the colophon (on f. 175v)"
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - Koen G - 10-06-2018
Are those "gallows" examples of the -ris, -tis... abbreviation?
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - DONJCH - 10-06-2018
Sorry Marco, I have to say (in a Billy Connolly accent) "That's no gallows! It's not tall enough!"
It only looks like one because the handwriting is all squashed up so you can't tell an ascender from a descender and the scale is distorted.
A more elegant origin could come from two looped l's with a macron in between, e.g. as per PDF page 122 of Capelli, collio = collegio
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I've been looking all day through over 100 Visigoth manuscripts and there was a lot that was interesting, but I ignored anything that was not on an ascender. Lots of gallows, but loops in the wrong place.
No doubt when JKP marshalls his resources we will all stand in awe...!
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - -JKP- - 11-06-2018
(10-06-2018, 10:41 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are those "gallows" examples of the -ris, -tis... abbreviation?
I don't know what the VMS designer intended, but the "-is" abbreviation can be added to both upper- and lowercase characters. It can be added to pretty much anything. Most of the time it means "-is", sometimes it means "-em" or "-tem" as in "Item".
I have also collected samples of "is" written horizontally rather than vertically and it is the same abbreviation, quite clearly. There's a great deal of latitude in how it is written and yet, because it is used in context, it will always be understood.
In the VMS we have no within-text context, that's why it's hard to determine what might be a character and what might be a combination of shapes but I am leaning toward the "-is" shape maybe being independent of the other shapes because it has been added to several different VMS glyphs and sometimes there is a little gap.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - -JKP- - 11-06-2018
(10-06-2018, 07:41 PM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
No doubt when JKP marshalls his resources we will all stand in awe...!
Don, it takes me about four hours to write a blog on each shape, and it usually takes two blogs to get all the ideas across with enough illustrations for people to understand it. These are not just shapes, as you probably know, it's a flexible combinatorial system, very flexible. Each scribe applied the same ideas in slightly different ways and I've seen the same word abbreviated four different ways in the same paragraph, occasionally even in the same sentence, and yet it's still comprehensible if one understands the basic building blocks.